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Válmiki
Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 36 - Description of the Supreme Deity Parameswara
The God added- Know now the lord god Rudra, who in the form of one self same intellect, is situated within every form of being, as is of the nature of self-conscious. (Swanubhiati) in every one.
He is the seed of seeds, and the pith and marrow of the course of nature; know it also as the agent of all actions, and the pure gist of the intellect also.
He is the pure cause of all causes, without any cause of himself; he is the producer and sustainer of all, without being produced or supported himself by another.
He is the sensation of all sensible beings, and the sense of all sensitive things; he is the sensibility of all sensuous objects, and the highest object of our sensuousness, and the source of endless varieties.
He is the pure light of all lights 1, and yet invisible by all of them. He is the increate and supernatural light, the source of all sources of light and the great mass of the light of Intellect.
He is no positive 2 existence, but the real 3 entity; he is all quiet and beyond the common acceptation's of reality and unreality: 4. And among the positive ideas of the great entity &c. (mahasattwādi), know him as the Intellect alone and no other. 5
He becomes the colour, colouring and colouror; He becomes as high as the lofty sky, and as low as the lowly hut. 6
There are in the expanded mind of this Intellect millions of worlds like sands in the desert, likewise many of these like blossoms of trees, have blown away, others are full blown, and many more will come to blow here after.
It is ever burning, as an inextinguishable flame by its own inherent fire; and though it is ever emitting innumerable sparks of its essence all about, yet there is no end of its light and heat and fire.
It contains in its bowels the great mountains, likening the particles of dust 7; it covers also the highest mountains, as the lofty sky hides the dusts on earth. So the śruti- Greater then the greatest and smaller than the smallest.
It comprehends the great- mahākalpa millennium, like a twinkling of the eye; and is also contained in a kalpa age, in its quick motion of a twinkling. 8
Though minute than the point of a hair, yet it encompasses the whole earth 9; and the seven oceans that encircle the earth with their vests, cannot gird the great Infinity.
He is called the great creator of the universe, though he creates nothing 10; and though he does all actions, yet he remains as doing nothing 11.
Though the deity is included under the category of substance, yet he is no substance at all; and though there be no substantiality in him, yet his spirit is the substratum of all things. 12
He is adya-(hodie) today, and prātar- practer tomorrow, and though the preter and future, yet he is always present. Wherefore he is neither now or then, but sempiternal and forever.
He is not in the babbling and prattling of babes and boys, nor in the bawling of beasts and brutes, nor in the jargon of savages; but equally understood by all in their peculiar modes of speech. 13
These words are meaningless and are yet true, like the obsolete words occurring in the Vedas. Therefore no words can truly express what is god, because they are not what he is 14. These difficult passages are not explained in the gloss and left out in the Calcutta edition.
I bow down to him who is all, in whom all reside and from whom they all proceed, and who is in all place and time, and who is diffused through all and called the one and all-to pan.
In this verbiology of obscure words, there will be found some fully expressive of the meaning, as in a forest of thick wood we happen to fragrant flowers, which we pluck and bear with us in handfuls. 15
Footnotes
1. of the sight, luminaries &c.
2. or material
3. or essential
4. Being no absolute or relative entity or non-entity
5. Many kinds of Entities are enumerated in Indian Philosophy, suchas:-
6. The colour-raga means the passion and feelings also; and the sky and but mean the empty space and decorated cottage
7. or rather as the roes of a fish
8. He is eternity as well as jot of time
9. as its boundary line
10. Like the makers of other things
11. by his calm quietness
12. All along he is the figure of vaipartya or opposition, which well applies to Brahmā who is all and nil or the omnium et nullum, Sarvamasarvam. (Though bodiless, he is the great body of the universe corpus mundi-viswarupa or viraj).
13. This is the interpretation of the gloss; but the words of the text are unintelligible and meaningless
14. but mere emblems
15. The entangled phraseology of the stanza will bear no literal translation
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